See my top-level post for a detailed description, and a possible explanation. I normally view forum topics sorted by active, but the next button apparently has "sort=NEWEST" hardcoded. With two different sorts, the indexing of comments is naturally different, leading to the observed behaviour.

You know, I don't know (before my time!). I would guess Twilight Zone, the original Star Trek, or...hm. I know I've heard of creepy shows from 30 years ago, but I'd have to think what they would have been...assorted "scary monsters, yo" type shows is the closest I can come atm.

Uh, I know it's off topic, but I can't post anything BUT comments here. Yes, I am overemphasizing because I can't post a question or forum topic (and the like) so I have no other choice but to post a comment somewhere on the bugs section.

I found an interesting effect of this bug. This morning when I checked out my You page it said that There have been 1548 comments on your instructables, forum topics, and/or your Orangeboard. Comment 1548 was made on my forum topic. http://www.instructables.com/community/Instructables-Drawing-Contest-with-Grand-Prize-of-/. When I replied to this comment and went back to my You page it said that I had 1547 comments and the one that I had replied to has disappeared. Now I have an orphaned reply on the forum.

yea i know about the unablity to post topics bug. I had to find the most popular topic in here and comment since I couldn't post a new one. and this was the most popular. but when ever i try to preview a new topic it wont let me. I have lost so much typing trying to get it to work. I was trying to spark popularity of my question I asked that INCLUDES A FREE PATCH TO THE PERSON WITH BEST IDEA. so click on my profile and go to questions and you will see it. i need people to know wbout it thats why i included the free patch.

FIRST BUG

Take a look at the featured comment thread which starts with my initial comment. Caitlinsdads' reply, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" (Jan 11, 2011. 2:21 PM) was a direct response to my comment at 2:12 pm.

The order of comments has been scrambled by the sticky tag. Specifically, the entire subthread is now ordered strictly chronologically, rather than threadwise.

Perfect! And you can see exactly what happens. When the top-level comment gets stickied, my reply, made at 2:12 pm percolates upward from being below the entire Kiteman thread, to being adjacent to Kiteman's own 2:12 pm reply.

The Next/Prev Bug is Alive!

With 107 comments in place, I confirm the next/prev bug is operating, and I think I've even figured it out (see the end of this post). I'm viewing this topic "sorted by active" (the default).

The last comment on the first page (1-100) is mine from 11 Jan at 5:50 pm (first image below).

On the same page, Matt's thread beginning "This is going to be totally Awesome!" appears about halfway down the page (second image below).

But then, following the next >> link shows Matt's thread again, this time claiming it's comment #101 (third image below).

And I think I see why! Notice in that third image, the "sort by:" flag has changed to newest (instead of active). The URL for the next >> button has "sort=NEWEST" hardwired in. I believe that the code should be set up to pass the user's same sorting request into the next and previous buttons as is currently displayed.

Grrr...can't reply to myself. So, yeah, the next/prev buttons if you look at the html default to newest. If you change newest to active on page 2, you'll see the continuation of the threads (because they're no other easy way to accomplish this feat). One thing that was brought up, is why there's even a sorting option for comments in the forum. Is there anyone who likes the sort option for any reason in forum topics?

The sorting option can be confusing, but it is also useful. The "active" sort option apparently puts the threads in chronological order according to the top-level comment. The "newest" sort option puts the threads in reverse chronological order according to the most recent comment found anywhere in each thread. The "oldest" option is the inverse of "newest."

Hi, Matt. For the reply-to-yourself issue, see my 12 Jan 2011 2:01 pm comment. I think it's because the actions with the comment entry box use JS to dynamically modify the local page, rather than fetching an updated version from the server. Please pass on to Rachel that those dynamic updates are apparently inconsistent with what the server "would have generated," leading to the bugs we see.

Nice catch! I noticed the same thing, and I thought it might have been due to other threads getting comments on them while I was reading everything. But in this case, that is not the case. Lemmie go chat with some smarter people then myself...

Yes. Did you follow the link Matt included in the topic text, to see the bug that is being investigated here? You can also read my sticky comment (above) for the list of other comment-related bugs I knew about at the start of this thread; and you can scan through some of the comments to see bugs people have observed while posting.

Ah, ha! I just reproduced the "can't reply to myself" bug which LiRa mentioned. If you write a new top-level comment, and hit the [post comment] button, then when the page comes back the JS hiding behind the REPLY link doesn't work.

I suspect that the posting action doesn't actually regenerate the page with a server-side query, but rather just modifies the local HTML cache with the new comment block (assuming that's possible with HTML4). Note also that the regenerated page has the same "nesting level" bug for which Matt posted pictures.

I think you've ran across something that happens to me a lot. When I reply to a lot of comments on one page, occasionaly one comment will superman all the other comments out of existance, and be the reply comment to everything. It's tough to replicate, but it happens everyone so often for me. Or did you mean to post this exact same comment twice?

I was thinking with mine, when you reply to someone, it indents their response...so if you have a bunch of first level comments, it'll set the one you replied to to the second level. I think if you reply to another first level above that one, it might work. Reading this, I don't think it makes a lick of sense, so I'm going to grab a screenshot, and do another post with pics! Yay pics!

I did not mean to post the exact same comment twice - the "superman" bug hit!

I'm attempting to reproduce it, but haven't been able to so far (although I HAVE been able to reproduce the "can't reply at all" bug - it seems to happen when I try to reply to myself, but only sometimes). I'll keep trying.

Edit: the "can't reply at all" isn't very clear - I mean, I can't reply to *myself* at all. Further testing reveals that at times when I try to reply to myself, I can't, but can reply to others (I'll try to narrow down what's causing it for sure).

Second image, the comments if I hit reply and cancel (notice the indent)

Last image, after I comment and before I reload the page (again indented)

I messed with it a few times, but couldn't get anything to happen. Like I said, it's a touchy thing. It seems to happen to me a lot on the username topic when I reply to a lot of people there without refreshing though. Care to give it a go, see if you can't figure out what's causing your reposts?

That's correct. I'm pretty sure it's a bug in the JS, or at the back end, that when you reply, the level where your reply will be gets put into a local variable which overwrites the level of the comment to which you are replying. The database doesn't get corrupted (of course), which is why the page refresh fixes the presentation.

Interesting! Your 4:41 post does have the last word and parenthesis bolded, at least with my browser. What you described is not valid HTML, but many modern browsers try to deal with such things "intelligently."